News

Tea Party CEO Reed Hall Says Scandal-Plagued Agency is “On The Right Track”

Months after a series of scathing audits showed the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation failed to properly track taxpayer funded loans and lacked basic accountability measures to a verify a single job it had created, Scott Walker’s flagship jobs agency is on pace to fall 60 percent short of its jobs goal and can’t provide a number of how many companies are meeting contractual obligations.

That’s according to the Tea Party CEO of WEDC, Reed Hall, who yesterday told WisPolitics.com that the scandal-plagued job creation agency was, “on the right track.”

WEDC’s job impact goal for the upcoming fiscal year is set at right around 20,000 -- about 60 percent short of the original jobs goal of 50,000.

WisPolitics.com also reports that, while Hall is “confident” that WEDC is tracking required reports from companies receiving taxpayer funds through WEDC, “he can't provide a number for how many companies are now meeting their requirements.”

A report from the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau showed that, out of a random sample, only 45 percent of companies receiving taxpayer funds through WEDC had submitted the required documentation.

“Scott Walker’s flagship jobs agency is on pace to fall 60 percent short of its jobs goal and they still can’t tell us with certainty that they are following the law, yet Walker’s administration says they are ‘on the right track,’” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said Tuesday. “Only using Scott Walker’s own personal dictionary could anyone define this abject failure as ‘on the right track’ to anything but more economic peril for Wisconsin’s middle-class.”